The case for power generation using renewable energy sources such as wind, wave and tidal energy sources, is now abundantly clear. One of the difficulties associated with such renewable energy sources relates to intermittency, and the problem of intermittency is dealt with in the applicant's earlier international patent application no. PCT/GB2006/004577, relating to power generation.
There is also a problem with turbine size scaling. The torque required in the shaft of a Horizontal Axis Wind Turbine (HAWT) increases with the cube of blade diameter but power increases only with the square of blade diameter. Thus, as HAWT machines become larger the cost of power conversion equipment per unit of rated power generally increases.